A Folding Paper Fan
by ShizukaRen-Hime
Summary: 'Even then,' he thought, brushing his thumb across the cherished, hated scar that marred the softness of her throat, 'even then, she was lovely.' SasukexOCxItachi. Gradually AU.
1. Scroll 1

**Scroll 1: The Aftermath**

It was late evening when the night shift nurses were roused from their complacent efficiency by the sound of screaming. It was a rattling sound, one that struck like a slap to the face and continued to seep into one's bones like the progression of a plague and made the poor night shift nurses feel sick. They immediately responded, ignoring their misgivings and near sprinting to the room it was coming from.

A little boy thrashed on the bed, shrieking as though the devil had descended upon him, clawing at the needles stuck in his arms, little hooked fingers flashing to his face and leaving raw stripes of red behind them as he seemingly attempted to rip out his own eyes.

"MOTHER! FATHER!"

The nurses attempted to subdue him, trying to console him in soft murmurs, calm cooing. The little boy screamed more, a raw, aching sound:

"ITACHI! ITACHI, I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR IT! I _SWEAR_!"

"Hush now, Sasuke-kun, calm down. He's not here. He's not-"

"MOTHER! MAI! ! I'LL KILL-"

Doctors rushed into the room, another nurse then striding in with a large needle that was instinctively recognized by every trained professional in the room as being a sedative. Sasuke sobbed into his little clenched hands, gritting his teeth as wild, vicious spasms racked his small frame. The doctors exchanged worried glances, and a nurse ran out of the room to be sick. It was disturbing, the age and the _hatred_ reflected in the eyes of a mere slip of a boy.

"Mai…Mai…you-"

He broke off, choking, and renewed his attempts at getting to his eyes with his thin fingers. A nurse approached cautiously, quietly, preparing to administer the sedative.

"Why, nii-san, why did you have to kill…"

He started crying for his mother and father and "Mai" all over again, thrashing violently against the hands restraining him-really, it was quite fortunate he was barely yet enrolled in the academy, or he would have been seriously capable of hurting someone, thought a doctor-and before he had the chance to draw in another disconcertingly shuddering breath, a needle was plunged into his pale arm and he was quieted.

"Miss! You're awake! How are you feeling?"

The woman's soft black eyes stared ahead of her, blank, unseeing, causing the cheerful nurse to pause, her smile fading.

"Miss?"

There was no response, just barely parted petal-soft lips, a strange emptiness in the patient's eyes that was entirely foreign to the clipboard-toting woman and shallow, disquieted breathing. The nurse pursed her lips and tried again.

"Miss? Miss…Mrs. Uchiha?"

The last word was said so lowly that it would have been impossible for a civilian to hear it. But the patient was no civilian, and she did. The nurse stopped for a moment, watching worriedly as the woman continued to stare ahead of herself, seemingly no longer breathing.

"Mrs. Uchiha?"

She had been warned not to mention names-it was the first thing that every staff member had been told when the woman and the boy arrived three days ago. A bad feeling blossomed in the pit of her stomach and then, without warning, tears began to spill onto the woman's cheeks, her eyes unblinking, her face emotionless, but the monitor displaying her heart rate going berserk. The nurse panicked.

"Doctor? _Doctor_!"

Low heels clicked frantically across the floor as the nurse hurried to attract the attention of any of her superiors. A small alarm sounded, causing a red light to flash above the door belonging to the elder Uchiha patient. Footsteps clattered down the hall.

And Uchiha Mai tuned an unearthly shade of white and lost consciousness.

"This is not the wisest idea you have suggested to us, Lord Hokage. We do not approve."

The Third Hokage looked at the pair that stood before him, the Village Elders.

"They are the last. It would be cruel to separate them, and it isn't as if they will put a drain on the village's resources. They are the sole heirs to an entire clan's wealth."

The man and woman exchanged a dark, unyielding look.

"The boy needs to be given to a foster family. He is too young. And the girl-"

A scathing look was directed at the leader of all the Hidden Leaf Village ninjas.

"She is an _invalid_. Not a shinobi. Not anymore."

The Hokage stood up, placing his palms flat on his desk, his voice low with tremendously restrained fury making his words resonate in his small office.

"They will stay together. I have arranged for an apartment for them to stay in, as I doubt it would be in their best interests to return to their compound. The boy is young, yes, but capable. To separate him from her is cruel, and to take from her what could be a reason for living is condemning her to her fate. The boy is already enrolled in the academy and she is very well-liked among the jounin of our village. As the Third Hokage, I am the sole power over our village's shinobi. Uchiha Mai is one of them. In a few years, Uchiha Sasuke will be as well. That is my decision."

Opulent kimonos crisply swished behind their turning owners and the Third Hokage, once he had sensed their presence fade entirely away, put a hand to the bridge of his nose, thinking of the two survivors of what would from then forever be known as the Uchiha Massacre, and cried.

"_Don't touch her_-"

A nurse stopped at the acid dripping from the young boy's furious tone. Well! She had never _heard_ of such disrespect! Why, that boy's parents should have taught him better! Imagine speaking to a stranger, an _adult_, in such an insolent, hateful way!

She stopped in the middle of her train of thought at the look on the boy's face, pursing her lips and stepping away from the wheelchair at once. The boy elbowed past her.

"The Uchiha need help from _no one_."

And at that, her blood ran cold. Uchiha. She had heard that…she had heard horrible things. The Uchiha. She had no idea that the two she was assigned to assist were _those_ two. The last of the most prestigious bloodline in the Hidden Leaf Village…

Sasuke, scowling, snatched the paper with his new address on it right out of the woman's hands and, with considerable effort from his eight year old form, began pushing the woman in the wheelchair away.

It was the beginning of a new life. A new existence. And seeing those blank eyes, the detestably sickly whiteness of her face, and the bandages around her throat made little Sasuke's hands tremble on the handles of the wheelchair. He would _kill_ his brother. For his mother and father. For his clan. And for Mai.

"We practiced throwing shuriken today. Iruka-sensei praised my skill in front of the entire class. The other boys were jealous, and the girls annoying as usual. It doesn't make a difference, though, because we are of the Uchiha, and we excel. Right Mai?"

Sasuke watched for any reaction, but there was nothing reflected in the eyes that had always been so soft, so warm…he put the spoon to her mouth and made sure (with not some satisfaction) that she swallowed. There. She had managed to finish an _entire_ bowl of soup!

"I'm going to keep getting more and more powerful. And next time, I'll be strong enough to protect you. I swear."

His little fingers brushed carefully at the now exposed scabbing at her throat. He was due to take her in to get her stitches removed soon…

"I won't let him hurt either of us again."

The boy left the bowl he had been feeding her out of on the table and instead pushed her chair out onto the little balcony connecting to their apartment.

"Some fresh air will be nice, right? You used to love sitting outside after training. And soon you'll be better and then you'll help me train, right? You should be the one to help me! You're way better than anyone else. You're one of the fastest ninjas ever! Just like-"

And there Sasuke spoke no more, because the fastest ninja in the village had always been Shisui…who people suspected was actually killed by…_Itachi_. His black eyes darkened and his knuckles turned white from how fiercely he gripped the handles of the wheelchair.

He wouldn't cry. Not anymore. Not in front of Mai.

"I'll get stronger. I will."

She didn't speak for a year. And Sasuke, too, as if in honor of her silence, withdrew into himself, becoming cold and unapproachable. It was only when Sasuke, losing faith in his own gentle methods and careful avoidance of anything that would remind her of the night they had lost everything, became desperate that there was a change.

"I've mastered it, Mai. Just as well as _he_ did. You'll see."

He locked the wheels of her chair for safety and, standing over the lake, made a handsign. He took in a deep breath, and, feeling secure in their surroundings, used the largest amount of chakra he had ever used before and spewed a fireball of immense proportions over the lake. It was so excessively large, it seemed to swallow up the entire body of water beneath it. The night sky around them was set ablaze like day, and Sasuke knew, he simply _knew_ that the raging inferno that he had created was visible even in the village.

It was the first time he had attempted that jutsu since _that night_.

"I'll surpass him, Mai, and I'll avenge our clan. I'll make him regret killing mother and father…Shisui…Auntie…everyone! I'll make him regret trying to kill you."

And then, hearing a shallow intake of breath that was entirely irregular, he turned and nearly stumbled in surprise. Those eyes…they were _soft_ again, filled with tears. He was quiet, waiting. Barely daring to breathe. And then-

"Sasuke!"

Her voice was hoarse, barely intelligible even in the quiet of the evening, but he heard it and hardly dared to move as she burst into tears.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so _sorry_."

And he bounded over to her and tossed his arms around her and pulled her thin frame into a hug-feeling disturbed at the ease with which it came to him, ignoring precisely how thin she was. He almost smiled, though, because she was _back_.

It took another year for Mai to recover to the point of being able to walk on her own.

"Mai! I'm home."

With a smirk on his face, he reached up and straightened his brand new headband. Having passed his test-as he was entirely sure he would-he was one step closer to fulfilling his destiny. He tossed his bag on the floor, glancing around. Could she be out?

"Sasuke! I'm in the kitchen!"

So she was. He calmly, collectedly strode into the aforementioned room, where Mai was apparently preparing dinner. Even though he was used to it-she did it every night, after all-he still felt a small twinge of grief at the familiarity of it. After all, it was his own mother who had taught her how to cook when she had first joined their family as a young…

"Sasuke, you're home early…oh-"

She broke into a wide grin that nearly made her look as she had before, when she had taken him training, bought him candy, lived with him and his family as…But no, she wasn't. Not anymore. In name, perhaps, but that could be changed. Her face was still gaunt, and even her joy subdued. He fought off a shudder at the dark scar at her throat-he hated it and he loved it all at once. It had almost killed her, but it was proof that she was alive.

"I'm so proud of you, Sasuke! Not, of course, that I ever doubted you could do it. If I did, I certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making such a large meal. I even made sweets!"

She laughed and danced over to him, her smile wide and her arms as inviting as they had always been. He rolled his eyes a little at that, because he knew her love of sweets-he himself didn't particularly care for them, but when she made them, he'd enjoy them, simply for that reason. She pulled him into a tight embrace.

"You're a genin now! Have you been assigned to your squad yet? Who's your teacher? Do I know him? Oh, I probably do! Maybe!"

She released him and went off humming into the kitchen, leaving Sasuke to follow, amused. "No, I haven't, and I won't find out who my teacher is until tomorrow," he started, settling down in a chair to watch her put her long black hair-characteristic of all the Uchiha-in some sort of twisted up-do with chopsticks. He took notice of a plate on the counter top, with season-appropriate sweets on it, his eye immediately drawn to skewered dumplings, pale pink, white, and machta green.

"You made dango. I remember you used to love it so much. What was the name of that tea shop? The one you used to go to almost every afternoon?"

He regretted so foolishly mentioning it, because in that very instant, Mai stiffened and stopped in the middle of stirring a pot. Her face had become blank again, and it scared Sasuke more than it would have if she had begun screaming or crying or _anything_ but that. A whole year, he had tried to break her out of her shell, and he was terrified of the thought of losing all he had left in the world to that empty, hollow husk again.

"Mai, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

She shrugged very carefully, making what was clearly a Herculean effort to return to some sort of normalcy, turning and smiling as brightly as she could at him. He felt sick.

"It was the Kanseina Aka Chashitsu. The 'Quiet Red' Tearoom. And I still love dango. Always."

He didn't say another word, not until much later that evening.

"I want to be reinstated."

The Third Hokage looked at the pale woman in front of his desk with not a little surprise. She was still sickly looking, and he knew better than anyone else about the great pains young Sasuke Uchiha had gone to in order to make her more herself. He knew that it had taken her a year to speak, to feel. Another to walk on her own two feet. She was capable now of moving about on her own entirely unassisted, even at great distances, and he knew that her chakra had settled. It was all in the medical report he had received.

But reinstatement?

"I apologize, but I cannot help but feel that it would not be wise for you to return to the field-not yet, at least. And I do not know that the elders will agree to have you reinstated."

"Why? Haven't I always served honorably? Haven't I defended the village?"

The Hokage sighed, wearily pinching the bridge of his nose as he mulled over how to handle this particular case with care.

"Of course you have. That is not the issue. Consider your history. I think that-"

He stopped when he felt the temperature in the air change and looked up, face grim, to see her eyes cold, her expression seemingly cracking-until she composed herself.

"With all due respect, sir, I trust that you aren't questioning my allegiance to this village? That my personal life and my surname are _not_ the basis of your decision?"

The Third Hokage looked her quite evenly in the eye. It was…difficult…to keep quiet. He knew exactly what her thoughts were centered on, or, more accurately, _who_ her thoughts were centered on and wished that he could set things right by revealing the truth…

Of course, that was impossible. But it didn't stop him from wishing all the same.

"No, Mai. I am not. My decision is based entirely on the fact that I do not believe that you are fit enough for duty _yet_. I am not saying that I will not reinstate you, only that this is not the time. Do you understand?"

Mai's expression became desperate.

"Lord Hokage, I would respectfully request that you reconsider. The body is only a single aspect of one's being, and it is more for the sake of my mind that I beg you to reconsider. I need to return to my work. It kills me to be here. Please…"

She bowed at the waist until her forehead touched her desk, and the Third Hokage sighed. Unfortunately, he understood her poorly worded meaning and sighed.

"You will not be an ANBU. You will need to work your way up in the ranks again. You will prove yourself capable or you will be discharged or permanently demoted."

Mai, wrung her ever-patient hands, closing her eyes and sighing, nodded.

"I understand. If that is what it takes…"

The Third Hokage exhaled slowly. He wasn't sure yet, if he had made a wise decision or a foolish one. Perhaps in time his choice would be rewarded.

"Very well. By my authority as the Third Hokage, I reinstate you, Uchiha Mai, as a shinobi of this village and grant to you the rank of genin. You will not be required to take the chunin exam to advance, but I will require the recommendation of a jounin prior to your private testing. You are dismissed."

It hit Mai like a slap to the face. _Genin_? She had once served the village as an elite ninja, a member of the Special Assassination and Tactical Squad, and now she was worth no more than an Academy graduate? But she squared her shoulders and held her head high, uncaring of the dark scar along her throat, and nodded, just once.

"Thank you, sir."

The Third Hokage lifted his head, then. There. There it was. In that lonely, broken woman, was the Will of Fire. It had returned to her. And so would she return to herself. Out of respect for her strength, he decided to put off no longer what had burdened him since her name was announced.

"Wait a moment, Mai."

She did, standing tall as she could, feeling more herself than she had in what seemed like an age. The Third Hokage looked her evenly in the eye.

"I wasn't planning to speak with you so soon…"

When he considered what the past few years, it seemed like it really was too soon.

"But I have been asked…by your young charge…"

Mai tried not to wince, but it was nearly impossible, given how inaccurate that statement was. Sasuke kept her alive for a year, fending both for her and himself, and then spent another year helping her return to some sort of working state. The Hokage continued.

"On the night that your family was massacred…"

Mai closed her eyes.

"You received that scar on your throat, the very same one that led young Sasuke Uchiha to believe that he had lost you as well as the rest of his family. By some miracle, you survived."

Indeed she had, Mai thought with a soft bitterness, fighting to keep her fingers from touching the dark slash across her throat. To this day, she didn't know how she had survived, against a ninja of _his_ caliber, against such honest killing intent.

"I will speak plainly. Sasuke Uchiha has requested, in his capacity as Head of the Uchiha Clan, that, with your consent, your marriage to Itachi Uchiha be annulled."

The Aftermath/End.


	2. Scroll 2

**Chapter 2: Relive, Rebuild, Regain**

Mai's breath caught in her throat. Sasuke? The Head of the Clan? Wanted her to annul her marriage to…Itachi? She swallowed, trying to control her breathing. Itachi. Annulment. She-she didn't know what exactly to think. To say. _Itachi_? She hadn't been able to bring herself to think, not for years, that wherever that man was, she was still bound to him. Married.

And now…annulment?

"_I-Itachi?"_

_The figure stepped out of the shadows and confirmed her suspicions. Her heart beating in relief, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, sobbing. _

"_Itachi! They're all-they're all dead. I checked. Your father…and mother. I-I didn't see Sasuke. We have to find him, Itachi, before-"_

_She choked on the rest of her sentence, nauseated by the sight of the bloody, broken couple on the floor. Fugaku-san and Mikoto-san. They had been so kind to her, so, so kind. And now they were gone. Her fingers curled into Itachi's shirt for a moment before she came to her senses and pulled away. _

"_Itachi, we have to find Sasuke. He's alive, he has to be. We need to get-"_

_She was suddenly pinned against the wall. _

"_He's still alive, Mai."_

_There was something wrong with his voice. There was something terribly, terribly wrong with his voice. It was too worked up, too hoarse, and not soothing, familiarly masculine as she knew it to be. If she could have, she would have backed away. As it was…_

"_Itachi…what are you-"_

_His eyes. They were scarlet against the blackness of the dark room. And they were changing. No longer were there three tomoe, like every other sharingan Mai had seen before. _

"_Itachi-"_

_She would have doubled over in pain if she could, when he punched her in the stomach at full force, were she not held in place by his hand pinning her arms above her head. He seemed to tower over her as she coughed, his eyes like fire in the night._

"_You will raise him. You will guide him. You will teach him the ways of the sharingan, though you yourself have not awakened it…You will be the instrument of his revenge."_

_What was he saying? She felt everything slowing, her heartbeat, stuttering and calming, barely delivering blood to the rest of her body. Had he hit a pressure point? What was he talking about-sharingan? Revenge? _

_Her thoughts were muddled as she leaned on her husband's strong shoulder, eyes opening and closing numbly as she tried to clear the hazy curtain that had settled over her vision. Was she dying? What had he done to her? He-_

_Itachi caught her wrist, surprised by the speed with which she had managed to put her poisoned hair pin to the only exposed skin within her reach, his cheek. He looked at her with obvious disgust when he realized that it was one with a pale, ice blue showering of stones hanging from it. It would put him to sleep for at least three days, but it wasn't meant to kill._

"_Fool. Had you not hesitated, had you not been unable to take the life of your beloved husband, you might have succeeded."_

_Mai looked blearily at him, swaying dizzily and then slowly scrunching her face in pain. He had broken her wrist when he stopped her. Why didn't she feel it until-_

"_Goodbye."_

_She was, in her dumb state, enraptured by his eyes, so much so that she hardly noticed his lips moving, his deep, sad voice so harshly, ruthlessly cutting her-_

_And she saw, somewhere in the part of her mind that could still register such thoughts, him lift a single kunai and slash her throat. _

_No sound escaped her lips, but her eyes met his, and that was when she truly descended into hell. _

"…Annulment?"

Clearly, thought the Hokage, it was a terrible mistake to suggest it. It was too soon. It was dangerous. And from the blank look that had conquered her face, it was something that she couldn't even _think_ of. He knew everything that had occurred, of course. He was the Hokage. He himself had attended the wedding of Uchiha Itachi, the prodigy and future leader of the Uchiha clan and Uchiha Mai, a powerful kunoichi in her own right, beautiful in the way of a lady and with the bloodline to match. Arranged though it was, the pair were clearly in love.

It had been a day out of a fairytale. And it had ended in the most brutal of nightmares.

Mai took a deep breath, willing away what came next in her recollection. Really, she didn't quite remember it, it was so horrible that her mind had all but erased the trauma from memory. But the _feeling_ of it. She remembered that quite well. As if it had not been enough to kill her, he had used the Mangekyou on her as well. In her dying moments. Or so he thought.

"Yes. Yes, that's fine. Annul it."

The Hokage looked at her in concern. Fiercest ninja in the village though he might have been, he was not without a heart.

"You do not need to make this decision so hastily. Please, think over it."

But Mai was an Uchiha, she was not the one who inherited the Will of Fire, she _was_ that Fire. She would not so easily be underestimated.

"Annul it."

She was standing firm in her decision. She would no longer be bound to that man. Taking the Hokage's quiet nod as a dismissal, she turned on her heel and left. Demoted to genin and divorced. She was an Uchiha. She was taught to stand up in the face of all adversity, to overcome. As such, it was only after she had arrived at the apartment she shared with her soon to be former brother-in-law and ascertained that Sasuke was not, in fact, there, that she cried.

After that, she trained.

Uchiha. To all others it was a clan of powerful warriors, famous for their unusually large amounts of chakra and their fearsome eyes. But to a member of that clan, the name was everything. Strength. Pride. Power. Hers was a bloodline born of suffering, of violence, of enduring ambition. Her, one of the last remaining Uchiha, demoted to a _genin_?

Her mother and father, God rest their souls, Fugaku-san and Mikoto-san, and the ancestors she had dreamt of as a child would all be rolling in their graves.

No, she would not stand for it.

It was the first time since _that night_ that either of them had dared return to the Uchiha compound. Sasuke or no, though, she would return. In all technicality, anyway, she was the Mistress of the Clan, and so she would remain until the ink dried on the papers that would terminate her marriage. Sasuke wasn't of age yet, either, so even then, as his acting guardian, she would have been the leader, was there any clan left to speak of.

With this thought steeling her, she threw open the towering doors to the compound, the faded clan symbol of a red and white splitting down the middle as she used her shinobi strength to push the gate open. And she stepped into a place untouched by time.

Out of respect for Sasuke and Mai, the compound had been left nearly entirely untouched. The bodies, of course, had been taken away for cremation, the way it had been for the Uchiha clan since the days of the Hidden Leaf Village's creation. It was their way of life, to live as fire and in death be consumed by the flames.

Everything was as she remembered it. Bloodstains and all.

"Fugaku-san…Mikoto-san…"

The house she had lived in, the Main House, where Sasuke and his parents and Itachi had lived was the same. The blood stain on the floor, where Fugaku's body had lay protectively over his wife's was still there. Closing her eyes almost nauseously as she remembered coming home just before Sasuke did to find them there.

He had wanted a few extra minutes of shuriken practice. How could she have denied him? In any case, she had wanted to be home in time to assist Mikoto-san with serving dinner.

Quietly, very quietly, and with a solemnity not undue to her surroundings, she opened a door with a shudder that seemed to run not only through her shaking body but through the entire, weary house.

It was their room. Her and Itachi's.

"No."

She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. Oh, she was glad that Sasuke had left on his first mission outside of the village. She couldn't have brought him with her. As it was, on her own, it was all she could do to will herself back into some semblance of calm.

No, not calm. Quiet.

She did her best to not look at the rest of the room, instead heading for her side-she winced at the thought-of the bed. She sat down out of habit; it was somehow ingrained in her, no matter how much she wished it wasn't. Swallowing back a hard-hitting, heavy emotion, she reached under the bed to pull out the essence of her very pride. Her fan.

The reason she had achieved the rank of ANBU wasn't because she was of a natural talent exceeding even the usual standard for Uchiha ninja. It was because she had worked her ass off everyday and in the evenings as well for years, from her academy days into her days as a chunin. It was her way of compensating, of living up to her clan's name. What else could she do but attain a high rank, if she was to shame her clan by never awakening her sharingan?

She had trained and trained and trained and at last was rewarded when her family passed onto her the weapon of her namesake, the first Mistress of the Clan, Uchiha Mai. She had been, as Mai was, of dual nature chakra releases, able to manipulate both fire and wind.

She held it out in front of her and noticed with a black sort of shame that her wrist trembled at its weight. That was simply unacceptable.

Through sheer force of will, she snapped the steel war fan shut, strapping it to her back where it belonged, and pulled on the special gloves she had developed, relishing in their familiar feel. Gingerly, she reached back and felt the edge of one of the blades of the fan. It was exactly as it had been on her last mission as an ANBU. Carefully, she ran her finger along the little iron band that stopped her fan from over extending. And nodded to herself, pleased, upon noting that the different texture, subtle, nearly invisible to the naked eye, was still there.

Deciding that there was no time like the present, Mai strode out of the room, pausing only for a moment at the crimson black stains on the floor, and then glaring, sickened, at her own blood on the wall. She felt her throat tighten, and slowly straightened up.

"Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Maybe not for years. But I swear, I _swear_ that I will put your memories to rest. Until then…please watch over your son and I."

She had, of course, meant Sasuke, but the little part of her that couldn't let go of the past stopped for a moment and added a quiet, solemn, "Both of them."

And then she went to that most familiar of places, and it was the first night of many that she would inhabit there. Willing herself into some shabby semblance of her former strength, she snapped her fan open. And she trained.

Elsewhere, Sasuke was on a mission. And not just any mission. The most important mission he had ever been on.

He huffed as he tried to evade senbon needles-sharp, thin, and deadly-blood pounding, breathing heavy, teeth gritted as the majority of them embedded themselves in his skin. He had to do better. He had to protect his friends, even if it cost him his life. That was how he had always been taught, and he knew that Mai would approve.

"Damn-"

He inhaled sharply through his teeth as he tried to move. Pain had erupted from a seemingly vitally placed needle, and it was impeding his movement. This was bad. This was very, _very_ bad. What would he do? What _could _he do?

It was then that he realized something…curious. He blinked, almost catching sight of a sleeve in one of those mirrors of ice. He tried to focus his perception on his sight and found that, if he concentrated, he could almost follow his opponent's movements.

"I can see…all of your movements. I can see you."

He launched a kunai knife at a mirror and the blurry figure stopped.

"I don't know how you are doing it…but you are indeed able to see me. It will not do you any good, though, because that alone is not enough. It will never be enough."

For just a fraction of a second, Sasuke caught sight of his own reflection in the ice. His eyes, desperate and-as loathe as he was to admit it-afraid, had turned a dark and furious red.

He could see.

Mai had been notified in advance that Sasuke would be returning from his mission later in the afternoon. It was only common courtesy, after all, considering how well-acquainted she was with his sensei. A little dog had come ahead to let her know, and had given her an interesting tidbit of information…one that set her heart ablaze with pride.

"Mai? I'm back."

Stiffening suddenly, she leapt more nimbly to her feet than she had in what seemed like an age and then bounded out of her room to envelope Sasuke in a gentle embrace. She knew all about his injuries, or at least, she knew their general location and gravity, thanks to Kakashi's ninja hound, and was careful to avoid those spots.

Sasuke stood ram-rod straight for a moment, surprised, before wrapping his arms around her a little tentatively and incredibly awkwardly before sighing and hugging her in a way that made her pause. And when she pulled away to take a better look at him, he locked gazes with her and willed his eyes to change.

Mai was silent for a moment before the faintest traces of a smile appeared on her face.

"You've grown."

And somehow, to Sasuke, who was always the subject of praise at the academy, among his peers, and among those ranking above him, those words meant the most of all.

"I made a promise, Mai. To my honored mother, my honored father, my clan and their pride, and to you. I will keep that promise."

Mai closed her eyes to shut away the truth of the similarities between the brothers that she loved and instead opted to gently kiss his forehead.

"I will teach you."

She knew that there was no hope of ever dissuading him from his plan. She knew that. Why, if there had been, she would have thought less of him. Sasuke knew that. And he knew, that even though she herself did not possess the sharingan, she was the best, at this stage, to train him. Kakashi-sensei had never had to awaken his own sharingan, only use what had already been developed. He was proud to begin under her tutelage.

"Teach me everything, everything you know."

Mai looked carefully at Sasuke and then pulled a familiar pair of gloves over her hands.

"This is the last night we will train."

He glanced up at her sharply, eyes full of questions.

"Why? Haven't I been doing well? It's only been two weeks. Have I done something wrong?"

His eyebrows furrowed as Mai had the audacity to laugh at him.

"What?"

She held up a single hand, the other shielding her mouth from his sight.

"Don't assume things. You have excelled. You have been able to adequately use the sharingan in battle and are now able to activate it by will. You have fully awakened it, which you had not done before, as you can tell by the presence of three tomoe. Tonight, you will activate it and fight me. You will not let your eyes revert. You will make no attempt other than what you normally would to conserve chakra. I haven't anything else to teach you after that. Perhaps then it would be best for you to go to Kakashi, for he has learned to utilize it. He would not, I think, have been able to help you develop it quite like I did, but it is he who will teach you to master it. Do you understand?"

He nodded. Mai smiled.

"Very well. Activate it."

His eyes melded into crimson-black and the bloodline of the Uchiha came whirring to life in his spinning tomoe. Mai's expression was fiercely proud, and in recognition of his achievement, she drew something he hadn't previously noted strapped to her back. Sasuke's lips nearly parted in surprise and a little awe.

"Is that-"

She nodded.

"This is the war fan of the first Mistress of the Clan, handed down within my family line since the Hidden Leaf Village was created, and the weapon given to me when…when I was betrothed to Itachi. It is a treasure of our clan, and I will use it against you."

Sasuke nodded once. It was an honor. Even if she couldn't wield it as she once had-he himself had nursed her back to health, he knew how she had been and thus was a little dubious of her ability-that she would draw that weapon, which he had only seen her do once before, to fight _him_ was an honor.

She snapped the steel war fan open with a flick of her wrist, and in that instant, Sasuke knew they were being serious. Mai flexed her wrist, grimacing for a moment, and then letting a serene expression settle on her features. When she opened her eyes again, they were calm.

"Begin."

And they fought.

Mai's fan, which Sasuke had never seen in action, was, even in her debilitated state, a truly dangerous weapon. Even without the use of ninjutsu she was famous for, it was formidable. It acted both as a shield and a quick, decisive blade, leaving little room for evasion due to its size. It was dangerous up close and capable of defending against anything he hurled at it. A single, sudden sweep and kunai and shuriken were useless. If he timed them differently, perhaps…?

No, it was futile. If he attacked her head on? He did so and found that the fan was sharpened to a blade-like precision. This was a killing weapon. And its size, he realized, was probably underestimated by every enemy that ever came upon it. It wasn't unwieldy in the least. Not, at least, in the hands of a skilled, if rusty, user. He was tired. They had been fighting for hours, and it was truly the work of his sharingan that he had managed so far.

They didn't use ninjutsu, they didn't need to, but Mai expected him to expend chakra to reinforce his taijutsu, and to keep himself above the water in the odd chance that they strayed over to the lake. It was what she taught him the first day, glad that Kakashi had taught him how to climb a tree already. He dodged a swipe of the fan but failed to notice that what he thought was a blow was really Mai snapping it shut and his sharingan flickered and faded from his eyes as Mai lifted her closed fan and brought it down on him. It was the last thing he saw.

When Sasuke, at last, lost consciousness-it was a particularly heavy blow she had landed on him, after all-Mai let herself fall backwards onto the soft grass, exhaling slightly. And then, looking out over the familiar lake, she stood for a moment.

Then, she made a handsign and spewed flame over the lake, all but incinerating the night with her fireball jutsu. Had Sasuke seen it, he would have immediately thought of the time he saw his father do it, and how small his first fireball had been in comparison.

The very next day, Mai hunted Kakashi down, and asked that he recommend her for testing. He looked at her for a few moments and agreed.

Relive, Rebuild, Regain/End.


	3. Scroll 3

**Scroll 3: The Slow End of Exposition**

"It has only been a month. Are you sure you are ready, Miss Uchiha? We do not doubt that it would be…easy for you to convince an old friend to vouch for you."

Mai held her chin up and ignored the blatant disregard her examiners held for Kakashi, a man she deeply admired and respected, having occasionally served under his captaincy during her time as an ANBU, and nodded.

"I am prepared."

She wasn't lying. It had been the most supreme of insults to be demoted to the rank of genin, and she did not doubt that it had been the village elders-long wary of her clan-that had demanded such a slight should she ever seek reinstatement. Kakashi, who had been standing quite casually leaning against a wall, took the suddenly available time to speak up.

"If I'm no longer needed, I have a genin team that I need to register for the chunin exam."

Mai nearly whipped around to face him incredulously, he certainly hadn't mentioned _that_ when he had invited her over for tea and to chat about his students-mainly Sasuke's-progress, but managed to keep herself composed as a true shinobi would.

The council of elders all turned to face the man who had all but dismissed them so carelessly, and in such a bored tone.

"Hatake Kakashi. Are you so confident in your recommendation? Have you been training her, perhaps, and neglecting your charges?"

Mai bristled but the silver-haired jounin took it all in stride.

"Nope. Haven't trained her at all. I haven't even seen her fight. She came and asked me to recommend her, and she had that look on her face…"

He shrugged.

"If she says she's ready, she's ready."

His visible eye scrunched up in a cheerfully disconcerting manner.

"I don't think she'll disappoint."

The elder presiding over the council-and most assuredly the oldest person in the room, Mai thought, taking a closer look-puckered his ancient lips in distaste.

"Very well. You may go. Remember, though, that it was you who vouched for her without ascertaining whether or not she was actually prepared. Her failure will reflect on you."

Kakashi shot Mai a deadpan look that seemed to say, "please pass and save me unnecessary trouble," and proceeded to disappear in a whirlwind of leaves and a puff of smoke.

And thus Mai was left on her own with the council.

Elsewhere, Kakashi sighed. He really hoped Mai knew what she was getting into. But then…she had been ANBU quality, and she had served under him. She was a comrade, and though he would never have said that they were close, they were friends. There weren't many left of their generation-the generation of shinobi that had fought in the last war-and she was, as he was, a relic of that suffering.

She would be fine.

Hmmm…where to start, Kakashi wondered, eyeing a file of papers with obvious regret. Why had he decided to sign his students up for the chunin exam this year, again? Oh, right…

Could any of his fellow jounin teachers blame him? Did _they_ have to put up with Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura on a daily basis? The answer to both questions was, of course, no, and Kakashi felt totally justified in his actions. He had faith in them as shinobi, they were improving by the day, but really, they were too much for any one, sane person to handle. Yeah.

"Your opponent will be Umino Iruka, a teacher from the academy who has agreed to test you."

Mai didn't nod at the council, but instead settled herself into her fighting stance, which was, had anyone there noticed, a stance particular to a certain former Leaf village shinobi. It looked mostly as if all she had done was tense her body, but in her experience, stances were unnecessary. All she needed was to find her center of gravity and she was ready.

Iruka bowed slightly.

"It is an honor to fight with you today, Uchiha-san."

Mai, though beginning to feel a little anxious from keeping her mind at a level of mission-level alert, smiled.

"Thank you for agreeing to test me, Umino-san."

She knew that, though the knowledge of her rank of ANBU was theoretically classified, he knew that she was at _least_ an elite jounin and that that was his true reason for saying that, but she ignored it. Until her examination proved otherwise, he was her superior.

"Begin."

And thus, they fought. Or rather, they stood still until Iruka realized that she was waiting for him to make the first move and threw some kunai at her vitals. She dodged them and waited. Understanding her intention, he came at her directly, kunai in hand.

Mai did not even have to draw her fan. She used the steel enforced lining of her gloves to redirect the blows when they came near and viciously knocked Iruka back into the ground with a well-placed sweep of her leg. The chunin she was fighting used the momentum of her blow to right himself again and came at her with three shadow clones.

Mai ran right between two of the clones, whipped her fan off of her back, and used it as an axle on which turned as she kicked both, one in the back of the head, the other in the face and caused them both to disappear. The third she dispatched as she righted herself, swinging her fan in a violent arc and pegging him in the stomach.

And then it was over. What had apparently been a clone disappeared in a puff of smoke and a glimmer of jade was visible at Iruka's throat. Mai stood directly behind him, the sharp point of her hair pin poised at his jugular vein. The deeply colored jade marked that she clearly did not intend to kill, as it was in actuality meant solely to incapacitate an enemy by paralyzing their nervous system. Iruka held his breath and then blinked and chuckled as she helped him up.

"You did very well, Uchiha-san."

Mai smiled softly at him.

"Thank you, Umino-san."

He nodded a cheery, "it was nothing" and waited to be dismissed.

"Umino Iruka, the council thanks you for your time and cooperation. You are dismissed."

He bowed and left. Mai waited. The council turned their attention to the woman before them and then, holding up a hand as if to silence the hall, the presiding elder spoke.

"We do not accept you as a chunin of this village. Yes, you managed to defeat your opponent, but being a chunin is not solely about physical skill."

Mai felt as though she had been slapped in the face and straightened her back, about to respond when the doors to the chamber opened and the Hokage entered.

"Objection. Uchiha Mai has already passed the chunin exam, the jounin exam, and been certified as a special class jounin. She is a former ANBU. She has been evaluated and found to be in sound mind. These tests are solely to judge whether she has returned to the state of physical competency required for the rank of chunin and anything higher at our discretion."

The Hokage stood with a more humble sort of arrogance before the council than Mai did. The council man who had spoken covered his mouth with a fan, stepping aside when the village elders stood. Their expressions were far from pleasant.

"You are correct, Lord Hokage. In this case, then, not only do we elevate the Uchiha woman to the rank of chunin, but fully reinstate her to her previous position in the ANBU corps. Uchiha Mai, you are dismissed."

Mai stiffened and nodded thanks, and the Hokage watched her go with a blank look on his face. Intentional. That's what it had been. The council never had the intention of leaving the woman safely ensconced in her home, working inferior levels of missions.

They had counted on her testing as soon as possible to salvage her dignity. She wasn't yet of her former ANBU quality. Chunin quality certainly, but ANBU? This was wrong.

And thus it was that, after another month of stagnancy, Mai took up the mask again. A month was the longest the Hokage could manage to delay the impending mission, and she used her time wisely. A masked man crouched in the window of Mai and Sasuke's apartment.

"Uchiha-san, the Hokage requests your presence."

Mai nodded, already suited up, and slipped her mask over her face. The bird-painted porcelain was comforting, familiar, and somehow did absolutely nothing to quell the disquieting feeling of nervousness in her stomach.

"Understood."

She leapt out of the window without hesitation, although she felt as though keeping up with the ANBU's pace was more difficult than she remembered it to be. It was through sheer force of will that she made it to the Hokage's office precisely behind the man without seeming to be out of breath.

It had been a long time.

The mission seemed easy enough, but Mai was careful to stay alert, to not make the mistake of underestimating her task because a deceptively simple sounding briefing. She had to go to the Land of Water, to pick up a scroll from a Feudal Lord, and to return it safely, unopened. It was an ANBU level mission because there were others after the scroll, and the feudal lord was afraid to send it via an envoy, even a protected one. Arrangements were made for the precious scroll to be transported in the hands of a capable ninja.

Capable meaning able to complete an S-rank mission.

What Mai hadn't yet made up in brawn, she hadn't lost in brains, though, and she was confident in her cool, analytical ability to get her through the mission. She absolutely expected to be attacked, perhaps even before she arrived in the Land of Water, and decided to take extra precautions.

In the twenty minutes she was allotted before leaving, she opened up the small chest that had been given to her as a wedding gift by Mikoto-san, taking a moment to trace a finger lovingly over the worn artistry of the swallows flitting about the silhouette of a woman who hid behind a fan of monstrous proportions, framed by wind and flame. She gently brushed a finger over the kanji script opposite the woman, who was in the far right of the picture.

"She dances, she who is the passion of my soul."

With a wry grin and a rolling of her eyes, Mai fully opened the lid and revealed a collection of priceless hairpins. Some were hers, some were from the time of the First Hokage. There had been speculation before, about Mai's namesake and the possible reasons for her collection of hairpins and combs. The box had been handed down for generations, and it was no longer clear whether it was simply a relic of the former abundance in the clan or useful for a purpose. One she had chosen the appropriate colors, she pulled a on a single hairpin.

It was part of the box, designed to hide a false bottom from intruders. The average Uchiha shinobi, of course, would see through that, but the majority of shinobi were not Uchiha, so it was a moot point. She deftly chose the poisons she believed that she would need and his the miniscule vials of each potion into the base of each hairpin. All of them were fatal, and she carried the antidote of only one.

When she left, all she had was her provisions, her weapons, and her mask. She did not have any team members, and that was nonnegotiable because it was by order of the council.

She was, after all, one of the "old Uchiha," unlike Sasuke, who was the "new Uchiha." Mai had no idea why the council of elders had taken such a sudden, deep-running distrust and dislike of her, but they had, and quite frankly, accustomed as she had become to reporting only to the Hokage, she didn't care.

The road to the Land of Water was suspiciously, suspiciously quiet. Mai's senses were on high alert, and the lack of action was rattling her nerves. It was so quiet, and what made it worse was that it was a natural kind of quiet, not even the sort of quiet that might indicate a trap. Mai took a deep breath to calm herself and then decided to pick up the pace. It was her plan, after all, to arrive in the Land of Water as early as she possibly could so that she could leave ahead of schedule and perhaps throw off any conceivable pursuers.

With that thought in mind, she ran.

"Welcome, ninja-san! You have arrived so much earlier than expected! It is true then, what they say about the ninja of Konoha being timely. Please, come right this way."

Mai nodded, dipping her head lightly behind her porcelain mask-it disconcerted the servant, she knew-in an elegant fashion. It had been drilled into her in her youth, being the daughter of one of the oldest Uchiha bloodlines, and the fact that she was a shinobi did not necessarily mean that she needed to be an uncivilized brute as well.

The servant looked surprised at her grace.

"His Lordship has asked that you are invited to rest in the Main House for as long as you need before taking the scroll. He will present it to you before you leave."

Mai nodded.

"If it is convenient to his Lordship, I would stay this evening to recover myself, and be off early in the morning. It would be for the best, I think, and better in line for the scroll's protection."

The servant nodded briskly and went off to make arrangements, and Mai was shown to her room. She slept that night, fitfully, because her mind was still on high alert, but she slept. And the next morning, after a light breakfast of soldier pills-honestly, the richness of the food she was offered would have made her sick as she ran-she was presented the scroll.

It was actually a very small scroll, small enough that she could literally put it in her kunai holster. To be safe, though, and to follow what had once been ANBU protocol-she sealed it into another scroll and placed that in her pact.

It had been a rule during her previous time as an ANBU, back when there was war and all that mattered was the mission. It had been suggested by Itachi Uchiha, a safeguard against failure. There could be no failure. And if that meant that, to protect the village, no one got the scroll or whatever item of import sealed away, so be it. Not, of course, that this rule had been implemented much in the years she had been decommissioned, but it was familiar and it was the way that had been brutally ingrained in her. It was how she would always operate.

The first leg of the journey was fine. Absolutely fine. In fact, though she kept herself alert, she felt as if she had correctly anticipated that whoever was after the scroll would be severely thrown off by how early she left. She had practically killed herself running there, anyway. It was a just reward. Staying later would have been the incorrect option, as it would give the enemy more time to set up traps.

It was truly ironic, then, that after leaving her enemy in the dust behind her, she would face peril in a form entirely unrelated to her mission.

One moment, she was running, the next, she was jumping back to avoid a body being slammed with brutal, brutal force into the ground right at her feet. Blood was splattered everywhere, even on Mai, and the impact of the body (Male, likely of chunin or special jounin ability, 21-23 years of age, she noted quickly, mid-range fighter judging by weapons, water-base chakra, Hidden Mist) left a gaping crater in the ground.

Either way, she was in trouble. There was absolutely no evidence of a true struggle visible on the man, so she warily decided to assume that whatever killed him was inordinately powerful and easily capable of overcoming her.

All that matters is the mission. The mission above all else. These were mantras drummed into her head during the time that she earned the tattoo on her shoulder, and it was this that spurred her forward, faster than she could remember going in a long time. It seemed the close brush with danger was awakening her muscle memory, because the speed and precision with which she dodged the thing being brought down upon her and swung round the man's ankle to kick him in the head-the man was, apparently, a water clone-was highly reminiscent of a move she had used on a mission with Kakashi.

"Not bad! Not good enough, either, but not bad. You'll still die, though…"

The man's chakra was monstrous. Terrifying. Instead of attacking, though, Mai wheeled around towards the sound of the voice, and leapt backwards to dodge a blow that came seemingly out of nowhere. Whatever it was that had been swung in her direction was huge, oddly-shaped, and wrapped in bandages. She blinked, somewhere in the back of her mind a little bemused when she noticed that her opponent was_ blue_.

He was wearing black robes with red clouds on them. She had been vaguely told of an organization of S-rank criminals called the Akatsuki. She was supposed to have been fully briefed, but the Hokage had ordered that she be granted reprieve of duty for a month so that she could train. Thus, she was generally in the dark. She had, though, thoroughly read through her bingo book, thank kami, and that knowledge was coming in handy. There was only one explanation for the oddly shaped sword and the blue skin.

Hoshigaki Kisame.

"Hey, it's rude to ignore people like that!"

He scowled at her when she again took off.

"Damn ANBU. So rude."

Mai was running as she felt his chakra suddenly spike and near her at an alarming pace. She pushed herself to go faster. But dammit, she thought, for such a huge guy, he was quick. And what was worse, she could tell without a doubt, _he was playing with her._

Not far from her location, three Hidden Mist ninjas shrieked in sudden, awful synchronization as they were simultaneously skewered on a fallen comrade's sword. A raven-haired shinobi looked down at them expressionlessly before tilting his head just so in the direction where he felt his partner's chakra spike.

"Hn."

Without a backwards glance, he took off in hot pursuit.

Mai was in trouble. Really big trouble. She was, actually, surrounded by a number of water clones, all grinning, displaying sharpened teeth.

"Going somewhere?"

No, thought Mai, irritated, but she would most certainly like to be. She analyzed her situation quickly as she found her center in preparation for the inevitable fight. No, there was absolutely no possibility of escaping without a fight. No, she would not win the fight, and would at best hope that a surprise attack would give her the opportunity she needed to run off.

In accordance with ANBU protocol, when the last living-or sole, in Mai's case-operative was compromised in a way that put mission success "beyond redemption," the operative was to-in the event of a mission such as Mai's-do whatever necessary to ensure artifact being transported did not fall into enemy hands. She had already done this when she sealed it into the scroll. Once the artifact is safely out of range of the enemy's conceivable possession, the operative is free to do whatever necessary to survive. This procedure was solely reserved for situations that "were above the ninety-seventh percentile in regards to fatality."

In other words, only when death was a certainty.

Feeling that she had done the best she could, and knowing that even before _that night_, she wouldn't have been able to take down an enemy of this caliber, Mai drew her fan and lunged. She managed to take out two water clones before she felt another, powerful presence approaching. It seemed almost-she froze. Hoshigaki Kisame. Known to be traveling in the company of…She didn't have time to finish the thought because the bandaged sword coming down fast on her fan was halted and she heard a sickeningly familiar voice.

"Kisame. This is not a Mist shinobi."

Mai could hardly breathe. Anything else-anyone else, and she would have been fine.

But it wasn't "anyone else." It was _him_.

When the sword was removed from her immediate vicinity, she knew at once that even with her mask-maybe even in part _because_ of her mask, he knew. He knew exactly who she was. Before her, as if shrouded in a halo of light from the sun behind his head, stood Itachi Uchiha. And as his eyes met hers-scarlet eyes ablaze with the pride of a bloodline and dark, disbelieving eyes, wide with recognition-it was almost as if nothing had changed. Almost.

Scroll 3/End.


	4. Scroll 4

**Scroll 4: Rendezvous**

What ran through Itachi Uchiha's mind when he came face to face with the woman he supposedly had killed no one would ever know. What went through Mai's mind, though, was enough to both fill her with a terror she couldn't quite contain and sicken her to her stomach.

It had been forever, it seemed, since she had last seen him. A lifetime. It seemed as if it had just been yesterday, for a moment, that they had lain together in their bed, exhausted after a mission, or that they had gone to the Kanseina Aka Tearoom together in the afternoon before going on their ritual stroll through the temple district.

But it hadn't. It had been years, and the last time she had seen the man who was always so gentle with her was _that night_. She could still see his sharingan, the tomoes whirring wildly about his pupils, as they morphed into the Mangekyou and his kunai tore through the soft, once lily-petal perfect skin of her throat.

"Why does it matter what village she's from? You're no fun, Itachi."

It sickened her to hear his name. It sickened her even more to think that she had looked at his face-albeit beneath the mask-for even just a moment in the same way she had looked at him before. And then, seeing his eyes drop to her throat, she swallowed despite herself and took in a shuddering breath. She was wearing a high-necked top, much like the traditional tops of her clan, but with a more fitted neck. Sasuke-bless him, she didn't even deserve to think his name, not after looking at Itachi like that-had bought her the first on she'd ever worn, thinking of her comfort and she hadn't worn anything since.

"She's none of our concern, nor did she directly engage you."

Mai's breath was shallow, caught, as she watched Itachi watch her. The blue-skinned man grumbled something unintelligible before pointing his weapon at her.

"Fine. Remember this day, girl. Remember that your life was spared on a whim."

Itachi had already turned from her.

"Enough, Kisame."

Before Mai had the chance to shakily exhale, they had gone. It was odd though, or it would have been had her mind not been reeling in shock as it was, but she could have sworn she heard _him_ mutter something very softly under his breath as he sprinted off.

"A whim…"

Mai dizzily shook her head, trying to regain her alertness. She didn't remember falling to the ground, but then, _he_ had been so obviously above her when he was there. She closed her eyes blearily and tried to clear her head. Disconcertingly close, or so Mai would have considered it, had she noticed, scarlet eyes melted black into a cool, analytical black. Itachi Uchiha glanced very briefly from behind a tree at the woman in the center of the clearing before grabbing the corpses of four Mist shinobi and leaving.

He didn't glance back.

Elsewhere, he disposed of the bodies, cleanly and efficiently. He needed to regroup with Kisame quickly…it would do no good to have him asking questions.

Mai made it the rest of the way to the village without any trouble. She delivered the scroll to the Hokage and was examined at the hospital. She had escaped with only bruised ribs and a few superficial cuts and scrapes.

Members of the Special Assassination and Tactical Squad were given priority treatment, of course, and were always to be healed to the best of the medical staff's ability, even when only with minor injuries. This was, of course, because they were the best of the best, and it was necessary for an ANBU to be fit for duty whenever the village needed them.

To be a member of the ANBU corps, a shinobi must be prepared to take mission after mission after mission, regardless of how tired one might be, how severely injured. Not that the latter wasn't generally taken care of, but…

It was a hard life. Sasuke, in his childhood, had aspired to reach the rank of ANBU, as his brother had by the age of eleven, as Mai had by fourteen. When Mai remembered the raven-haired boy excitedly babbling about how proud he was going to make her, and describing the sorts of missions he would join her and Itachi-nii and Shisui-nii on, she shook her head.

It wasn't the sort of fate she had wished for him then, not for that naïve little boy who made her forget the horrors of the field with his bright, winsome little smile. It didn't matter now, though, not when he was bent on revenge. ANBU, genin, rogue ninja…For Sasuke, there was only one end. Mai closed her eyes and sighed when she saw that Itachi's face, still consisting of the glaring, red sharingan and almost indecipherable silhouette, was still there.

And then shook her head to clear the image from her mind and thanked her fellow ANBU as they admitted her into the Hokage's office so that she could recite her verbal report and answer any questions. Written reports were, of course, mandatory, but it was well-known fact that ANBU were busy ninja, so only verbal reports were made mandatory upon return.

Written reports, Mai thought, her hand twitching in anticipation, absolutely sucked and could definitely wait until later. That said, she delved into a precise recount of her mission.

"You were accosted by a shinobi you identified to be Hoshigaki Kisame?"

Mai nodded at the Third Hokage's question, standing respectfully straight in front of his desk, looking out of the window behind him as she spoke.

"Yes, sir. Both his physical appearance and fighting style matched what was listed in the Bingo Book. We engaged in a brief skirmish, but were interrupted…The speculation that Hoshigaki Kisame was traveling in the company of Itachi Uchiha is true, sir. I confirmed it with my own eyes. During my battle with Hoshigaki, Itachi-the Uchiha appeared. It seemed that the pair were in a hurry, because Ita-the Uchiha ordered Hoshigaki to leave me. They seemed to be specifically going after Mist shinobi."

The Hokage was silent for a moment.

"You mean to say Itachi Uchiha spared you?"

Mai had dreaded the possibility of this question.

"Yes, sir. I do not think that he recognized me, though, as I was wearing both my mask and my traveling cloak. It seemed to me that both Hoshigaki and the Uchiha were going somewhere in a hurry. I thought it unusual for a renown killer to spare a ninja that could have been spying on him; I would have expected him not to take the chance. It is, however, possible that he has grown arrogant in his ability. He is not the man I knew."

Mai flinched when she realized she had crossed the line from an impersonal account of what happened to saying aloud her own mental commentary. The Hokage seemed to notice her discomfort and nodded quite kindly at her, smiling gently.

"Thank you, Mai, for your hard work. I will send for you when I need you again."

Face blazing scarlet at her lack of professionalism, Mai knelt on the ground in true ANBU style and gracefully accepted her dismissal before disappearing in a whirlwind of leaves.

"Hokage-sama?"

The old man sitting at his desk looked up and motioned a young medical ninja into his office. The man respectfully placed a folder on the Hokage's desk, murmuring a deferent, "for your consideration, Lord Hokage."

The folder contained the results of Uchiha Mai's med-exam.

"If it is convenient, Lord Hokage, I will make my verbal report?"

The Hokage, more than a little intrigued, nodded and the medic began.

"We have attended to Uchiha Mai as ANBU practice protocol dictates and found that she suffered minor injuries during her time in the field, including bruising of the ribs, a mild concussion, and stress fracturing of the ulna. The report in your hands provides greater details to the particulars involved. While examining the patient, slight inconsistency of chakra flow was noted in her brain, indicating genjutsu. Greater detail is found in the file on your desk, sir, and Dr. Kirihoshi, the attending specialist, has written of the matter in further detail."

The young medic looked flustered for a moment before continuing.

"You ordered any evidence of possible genjutsu influence to be reported directly to you, sir, whether it was clear or insubstantial. Uchiha Mai is fit for duty, though, and is not under any form of genjutsu whatsoever at this time. That is my report, sir."

The Hokage nodded, picking up the folder before him and flipping through it.

"Thank you, that is all."

The medic bowed rather stiffly and left. The Hokage continued to read through the report, passing over the detailed account of physical injuries and skipping straight ahead to the section labeled "Notes of the Attending Physician."

_Alarmingly subtle discrepancies of chakra flow in certain parts of brain…point to a master-level illusionist…it is unlikely that the patient managed to break such a strongly concealed genjutsu…must have been released by the caster…never before seen such subtle effects…patient is clear of genjutsu influence and is fit for duty…would advise Lord Hokage to look into the matter…possible security threat…Kirihoshi Yakuto, Attending Physician._

"Interesting…"

When Mai reappeared outside the Hokage's building in the embrace of a little breeze, she was nearly giddy with joy. She had done it. To any other ANBU, it wouldn't have been an accomplishment, and certainly, to Mai herself in the past it had come as naturally as breathing, but now it was something to be proud of.

Gleefully, she practically skipped the rest of the way to her apartment. Well, as close as someone still in ANBU uniform with the mandate of discretion looming over her head could be. It was a shallow joy and a meaningless victory, but it was joy and victory nonetheless. And she would prefer to return to her and Sasuke's apartment in a mood that didn't immediately make Sasuke suspect anything. He couldn't know that she'd seen Itachi, that he'd spared her life. No, she wouldn't let Sasuke know about that.

"Mai! You're back early!"

Mai blinked as Sasuke threw open the door, leaving her standing in the hallway with her key in her hand, ready to put it into the lock.

"I thought it would be wiser to take the scroll as early as possible, yes. Why?"

The dark-haired boy stepped aside, shrugging casually, as though he hadn't run to the door and nearly ripped it off its hinges in surprise and a little relief.

"I wasn't expecting you, that's all."

Mai stepped in almost suspiciously-which, considering what she had been put through in the past few days, was not entirely unfounded-and looked at him, puzzled.

"Are you alright?"

Sasuke nodded rather flippantly.

"I'm fine."

Mai looked at him rather unsurely before nodding.

"Well…I think I'm going to go get some sleep. I half-killed myself trying to get the scroll delivered substantially before schedule to avoid a fight, and soldier pills only do so much."

Somehow, she felt as she had when she was with Itachi, the first time he had taken her out for tea and sweets, making her (actually true and therefore valid) excuses outside her house. It was something in the seemingly forced casualness in their conversation that did it, and she wondered what on earth had brought it on.

Sasuke rather awkwardly nodded an affirmative and a puzzled, discomfited Mai left.

It had been odd, when she was gone. He hadn't liked it. And…not that he would ever admit it, but it was strange, seeing her in her ANBU gear, seeing her with that mask again, even if she hadn't technically been wearing it. It made him think too much of the old Mai, one he thought of just as fervently, though it was the old Mai that was Itachi's.

The old Mai, after all, deserved to be just as fondly thought of as this one. It had been Mai who had played with him when Itachi couldn't, later, when she had come to live with them as a young bride, it was Mai who would train him when Itachi didn't want to anymore. She had been a central part of his world, and she was everything to him now.

Sitting on the couch, Sasuke wondered when he started to _worry_. It was unlike him, and it was entirely unnecessary. Mai could take care of herself. She had always been his ideal of what a woman should be, gentle, nurturing, and a formidable opponent in her own right. She was well-loved by the clan, if occasionally excluded from clan meetings due to her age and her lack of sharingan. But she was kind and well-mannered and talented, and he knew she was intelligent. So what was the problem?

He thought briefly of the only time he had even had the remotest possibility of panicking for her sake before _that_ night.

"_Oh! Mai-are you alright?"_

_Mikoto nearly had a heart attack when Mai came in with her eldest son, a nasty bruise on her face and-here was the shock-her hair loose, shorn from just above her chin on the left side, her hair pins absent from her usually present up-do. _

_Sasuke, nearly at the age of beginning at the Academy, watched almost frightened as his brother quietly took Mai's hand and led her into the house. _

"_Nii-san? What happened to-"_

_Mai grinned at him and his mother._

"_I'm fine, no need to worry."_

_Mikoto was shocked. _

"_But Mai, your hair-"_

_Mai shrugged a bit helplessly, her smile fading a little, and to everyone's surprise it was Itachi, standing almost protectively near her, that answered. _

"_She cut it herself. As my second-in-command, she took it upon herself to serve as a distraction while I assassinated the target. The other two members of our squad were supposedly newly passed recruits, so she requested that they remain on standby in case either of us needed backup. They were with the enemy from the beginning and turned on her. It was thanks to Mai that the mission was still a success. The entire operation had been a trap."_

_Sasuke scrambled up from his place on the floor, his then littler fingers tangling themselves in the remnants of her hair that were still long. _

"_Tell me all about it, Mai! What happened!"_

_The raven-haired girl laughed and shook her head. _

"_It wasn't really all that exciting, Sasuke."_

_The boy resolutely __**didn't**__ pout, and tugged a little more frantically on her hair as he demanded her to elaborate on what he could tell was going to be an awesome story that would result in Mai being even cooler than she was before. At least, in young Sasuke's mind. _

"_Tell me! Girls care more about their looks than anything else, and you cut your hair! It was so pretty, I know you didn't want to cut it! So the bad guys must have cut it off, right?"_

_Itachi looked a little indulgently at Sasuke before looking to Mai, clearly preferring to lead her to the quiet solace of his room so that they could talk, but Mai started to speak._

"_Alright, fine, but don't be disappointed when it's not the incredible account of bravery that you expected it to be. Our teammates turned on us-"_

_Sasuke blew a raspberry in disgust. _

"_When I'm an ANBU too, I'll be on your squad and Shisui-nii can come with us and we won't betray you and Itachi-nii EVER!"_

"_Sasuke, don't interrupt her," Itachi admonished gently, making Sasuke turn a little pink about the ears. Mai laughed quietly into her hand before going on._

"_Of course you wouldn't, Sasuke. I know that. So, our teammates had, as Itachi had earlier suspected, been working with the enemy. It was risky, but we NEEDED to get to the target, otherwise the whole village would be in danger. So I told Itachi to go ahead and complete the mission in secret, and we told the other two members of our squad that THEY were going to do the actual assassination and that we would take out the guards."_

_Sasuke was sitting at the edge of his cushion._

"_And then they turned on you? They did, right?"_

"_Sasuke."_

"_Right! Sorry nii-san. Sorry."_

"_Apologize to Mai, Sasuke. She's the one telling you the story."_

"_Right! Sorry Mai!" _

"_It's fine. When I attacked the guards to be the 'distraction,' though, the spies on our squad attacked me instead of taking the target and running like we expected them to do. I was too busy fighting the enemy ninja that the target had hired for his protection to notice what they were doing until it was too late. _

_You see, one of the spies was a lightning user. The other used earth. While I was fighting, the earth user attacked in order to distract me from the other spy, who grabbed hold of my hair and half ripped my hair pins out. Hair conducts electricity, in case you didn't know. Well, I know that girls like pretty things, Sasuke-kun, and thank you for saying that my hair was pretty, but I am a shinobi first and foremost. A ninja. _

_My appearance is not my priority. The second my hair became a liability, I got rid of it. I cut it off to free myself and used my fan to take him down. Wind beats lightning, Sasuke. Remember that. And fire beats wind, and water beats fire. What element do the Uchiha always have?"_

_Sasuke grinned proudly when he answered._

"_Fire, duh! You have fire and wind, and Itachi-nii has fire and water!"_

_Mai smiled. _

"_Very good Sasuke. Hell, you'll probably be my squad captain in a few years."_

_Sasuke strutted around the house like a rooster the rest of the evening._

It was hard to think of those days, when Itachi and Mai were savoring a blossoming romance, one that was convenient when one considered their arranged marriage and how abruptly it was revealed after that incident.

It was funny how Sasuke had always thought of that day-it had proven Mai's strength to him, her courage, and her ability as a ninja. It was the closest he had come in his childhood to being frightened for her, and yet now, having nearly lost her once and having lost all else, he found that he had grown comfortable in his role as caretaker, in having her safe at home, and he found it difficult to shake the image he had of her in the hospital bed, of the scar along her throat. And it was ironic that the next time he saw her, split up again by her second mission since her reinstatement and his participation in the chunin exam, that he would not feel worried, and that she, as he had seen her so many times before in his youth, would be in the arms of her one-time lover and husband, his brother, Itachi.

Mai was called out for another mission the next day. Sasuke left for training with Kakashi. It was a long mission that Mai had been sent on, and she had been made part of a squad this time. When she returned, she was met with the sound of an explosion.

In order to do her duty as a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village, she traced the noise to its origin without a second thought. The sight she met with, now without her mask and armed only with her fan and hairpins, was an unwelcome one indeed, one that made her stomach churn in unadulterated rage.

"_Itachi_!"

Rendezvous/End.


	5. Scroll 5

**Scroll 5: Open Your Eyes**

Seeing Sakura's hair on the ground and being a witness to her beaten condition in the Forest of Death was something that Sasuke felt he would remember forever.

The way she had been kneeling, her swollen face, and the strands of long hair scattered about the floor had been startlingly similar to the way his childhood self had imagined Mai when she had cut her hair off to remove the lightning using ninja's advantage over her.

It felt to him like some sort of divine intervention, letting him know that he wasn't strong enough, not by a long shot, to do what he wanted to do and protect those he wanted to protect. So, when he heard from a certain careless jounin that Itachi was in town and was after Naruto, Sasuke resolved to immediately act and went after the blonde boy who had become something akin to his brother.

He didn't think of Mai other than quite ironically being thankful that she was on a mission and more thankful still that she would return soon, in time, he hoped, to be received with the news that the man who had hurt them was dead.

Mai, on the other hand, had just been coming back from an assassination mission and had already broken ways (for the sake of preserving one's identity, as per ANBU protocol) with the squad she had been placed on immediately after reporting their success to the Hokage.

When she heard the explosion, she felt down to her very bones that something was very wrong and decided to investigate. It was, quite frankly, just her luck that when she was without her mask and generally unprepared, she would meet with Itachi once again.

"Itachi!"

It hurt, when he ignored her, more than it did when she foolishly, recklessly attacked him directly and was slammed into the ground.

She hoped, though, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it hurt him as much when she feinted trying to sweep-kick his legs from under him and instead planted her foot solidly into his chest, drawing her fan as she rolled into a standing position, her expression lividly pale.

She had overcome, in their brief meeting, the part of her that simply froze up and could not move when she saw him, because that had been the first time and this moment in time was a different thing altogether.

When he melted into a number of crows, the analytical part of Mai acknowledged that she was utterly, hopelessly outclassed. The rest of her concurred, but her anger in that moment was so great that she fought anyway.

Seeing Itachi during her mission had wiped out any and all traces of that fervent though impossible hope that she had somehow kept kindling in her heart-the hope that Itachi was still her Itachi and not some monster that would slaughter his clan.

That foolishness was gone now.

Mai knew nothing of Naruto, Sasuke's teammate. Nothing, other than what she could glean of him from the picture shown to her by Kakashi. She recognized the boy, and she could see that the man she had once loved most in the world-and now hated in equal measure-was after him. The boy who, from what Kakashi told her, was like a brother to Sasuke.

She would not stand for it.

Itachi, obviously, was playing with her. Forcing her into genjutsu after genjutsu, and it seemed as if not matter how many times she released-genjutsu was her weakness, as it was in most unrealized Uchiha blood, dependent on their sharingan as they were in the field-that she had no chance of ever escaping.

In some dark, distant, desperate corner of her heart, though, she wished that the man she was fighting-or, _attempting_ to fight-would say something. Anything.

"_Itachi_!"

The voice that had called out her opponent's name was not her own. Mai, doing her utmost to keep focused on the battle she was attempting to fight, nearly failed to block an incoming blow in the worst form of surprise. The last person on earth she wanted to see in that particular moment had arrived.

Sasuke.

When the raven-haired boy charged, Mai swung her fan open in a way that would dig its sharpened blades into the back of Itachi's knee. She elbowed him in the face, or tried to, at least, and was gratified to be set free of the chokehold of his arm around her neck.

It wasn't until after she'd stumbled forward, fighting back a brief cough and recovering herself that she realized, lividly pale, that the Itachi that was slamming Sasuke into the ground was the _real_ one. Because she cut him and he _bled_.

When Itachi drove his foot into Sasuke's ribs and sent him flying, something in Mai snapped and she stopped, overwhelmed by a cold and frigid fury.

"Don't you dare. Don't you _dare_-"

Anything else she might have said died in her mouth as she renewed her assault on Itachi with a violence beyond that of her initial attack. She swung her fan at him again and lit up the sky with her Uchiha affinity for fire.

And there was a flicker, a very slight flicker, of something in her eyes.

To say that anyone really, truly knew what happened between them in the moment that Itachi dodged the flames of her jutsu and seemingly materialized behind her, knife to her throat, was an utter lie.

It all happened so quickly that it seemed as if he were standing there, holding her, when in reality she used her steel and flint wrist guards to block his kunai and knock it away from herself, stomping viciously on his foot in an attempt to get him to let go of her.

It didn't work, and in the same movement he used to rescue his foot he swept her off her feet (literally) and twisted her wrist behind her back, making her drop her fan.

In retaliation Mai hit him in the face with the curve of her palm and was rewarded rather unjustly by Itachi grabbing said hand and using it to force her arm around her throat, completely subduing her. Mai stilled herself for a moment, knowing she was entirely at his mercy, and closed her eyes.

Long ago, she would have willingly rested in his strong arms. Not anymore.

With a Herculean effort, her eyes cold as she snapped them open, Mai threw Itachi over her, intending to slam him into the floor and thus free herself.

It worked, to a certain extent, except that Itachi was much too skilled to be _truly_ taken by surprise and instead rather harmlessly landed on his feet, whirling about with his hands flying into signs so that when Mai swung her freshly recovered fan at him, he disappeared into another scattering of crows and was left untouched by the wind chakra that otherwise would have left him in ribbons.

Mai was not yet the fighter she had been, though, and she kept awareness of her chakra levels as she tried to release herself from whatever genjutsu she had been put under and swung her fan in a violent arc again, causing a blast of concentrated wind chakra to "clear" the air around her so that she wouldn't be taken by nasty surprise upon returning to reality.

She needn't have bothered, because if anyone knew her well enough to know that she would take such a precaution, it was Itachi Uchiha.

After what had seemed like a shatteringly long interpretation of forever, he said the first word that had been directed at her since the night he-_almost_-killed her.

In some savagely unfair way, Mai felt a little shudder of, of _something_ go through her when it truly hit her that the first word he said to her after _that night_ was her name.

"Mai."

It was no question, it was a statement. Not radiating surprise in the least. Mai considered it in a flicker of thought. Perhaps he had recognized her, then? That last time? He always had been good at masking his thoughts, although once upon a time Mai had been rather apt at reading them. Either way, though, he had known she was alive.

She locked eyes with him.

"Itachi."

They were still for just a moment. Just one.

Mai lifted her fan.

"No more illusions, Itachi."

He acquiesced with a slight inclining of his head.

"As you wish."

There was something in his voice that made Mai pause and let through softly parted lips a careless, almost compliant sigh. She knew, that regardless of what she wanted to feel and what she _should_ feel, she would remember those words in the off chance that she survived.

Just for a single moment, though, they were still. And then…

They lunged.

It was not with a ferocity or hateful rage that Mai attacked Itachi, and it was not with a vicious or particularly apparent loathing that Itachi came at her. Really, it was with the cool detachedness of strangers engaging in a sparring session.

Itachi was true to his word and did not put her under any more genjutsu.

They dueled.

"Mai! _Mai_!"

There were no words to describe, exactly, what it was that Sasuke felt in the moment that he saw his brother slam Mai-_his_ Mai, now, _not_ Itachi's-into the ground, but it gave him whatever it was that he had apparently been lacking because he stood up and went at his brother again.

This was a battle of an entirely different kind.

Sasuke was so full of loathing it could be felt, it was palpable in the air, and Mai, head spinning as she tried to will herself to her feet, felt sick at the intensity of it.

"Sasuke, don't-"

She didn't know what it was that she didn't want Sasuke to do, only that every fiber of her being was dead set against it. Naturally, he did it anyway.

"ITACHI!"

He blew a huge fireball at his brother, launching innumerable kunai knives and using them as an opening by which to get into the sort of range necessary for close combat. He tried to get in a sweep kick but Mai never knew if it connected or not because she was suddenly hauled to her feet and then some, being dangled a few inches above the floor.

"So you're the one."

Hoshigaki Kisame. Whatever he meant by _that_, though, Mai did not know. All she knew was that she was in serious trouble. Since both her hands were free, she used them to grab onto his and used his arm as a bar from which she propelled herself into a kick (aiming for his face) and flipped backwards out of his grip in a violent, if neat, motion.

Kisame grinned, recognizing the style of the move, if not the move itself.

"You're that ANBU. The one from near Mist."

Mai didn't dwell on whatever it was that he meant because quite frankly, she didn't have time. He could kill her. He probably _would_ kill her. While she filed the comment away for later analysis, if necessary, a habit ingrained in her by years of experience with ANBU, she didn't pay it any heed then. All that mattered was survival. All that mattered was Sasuke.

She repeated it to herself like a mantra of sorts, in time with her pounding heart.

It helped her focus. Calm. No, not calm. It sharpened her, made her more formidable, like taking a blade to a grindstone. She was ready, now. For whatever he might do. As ready as she would ever be, circumstances given.

It was a shame that all of her mental prepping was thrown out the figurative window when he opened his mouth, grinning.

"I was so disappointed when I missed meeting you."

_What?_

Of all things, she certainly hadn't expected that. What…what was _that_ supposed…

"Hoshigaki Kisame."

His lips pulled back in a feral grin and he easily hefted the incredibly cumbersome looking sword he had off his back.

"It's a shame I'm going to kill you."

Somehow, Kisame's superficially friendly attitude-layered over a killing intent Mai hadn't felt the likes of in years-brought her down to earth again, out of the storm of her thoughts. Mai shrugged, finding her center of gravity as _he_ had taught her.

"It's a shame I have to die."

The blue man was bewildered for a second before bursting into uproarious laughter.

"That it is."

And that was it. There was no more time for banter, there was simply the fight. Which, as with her fight against Itachi, consisted mainly of him toying with her. Also, Mai thought grimly, she didn't need to look over at Sasuke to know that he was getting his ass kicked. She had to do something. Anything. She-

She ducked to avoid being hit by that overly large sword and danced back, her fan in its closed melee position. Like almost all of her attempts at anything, though, it was a worthless action because she was suddenly hit from behind by that same sword. The blue man she had dodged grinned at her and disappeared with a splash of water.

It hit her with a force unbelievable and when it sent her flying with presumably several cracked, if not outright broken, ribs, Mai felt as if she were suddenly dead on her feet.

The damned sword had siphoned her chakra.

"Figured it out, have you?"

Kisame was grinning at her, his sword swung easily over his shoulder. Mai shrugged, more preoccupied with calculating the amount of chakra she had left and determining whatever strategy would be able to best employ its use.

"Your sword ate my chakra."

She said it flatly, trying to buy herself some time, but she was feeling a little dizzy and she had a sneaking suspicion that she was in serious medical trouble because of those ribs. She couldn't breathe. Kisame hefted his sword in one hand and gave her a fiercely anticipative grin as if to say goodbye and came at her again.

She barely managed to disappear in a whirlwind of leaves in time, and when she reappeared, it was breathless, wiping at her mouth, with several unfortunately easily crossed feet of ground between her and her opponent.

"Shit. I-

Mai closed her eyes firmly, willing herself into control. Body over mind. Body over mind. At this rate, she was more likely to simply fall dead to the floor from chakra depletion than she was to be killed by Kisame Hoshigaki.

"Kisame. We're leaving."

In her half-delirious state, Mai shuddered at the sound of his voice. Somewhere, Kisame rested his sword on the ground, his expression one of distaste and vague petulance.

"Why? I'm having fun."

Mai ignored both of them, forgetting about Itachi other than the dim awareness of his presence that their past had fostered within her. Where was Sasuke? She didn't know what she would do, if Sasuke was-

"We're done."

Kisame Hoshigaki was a good-natured man, surprising, perhaps, for one known as such a ruthless, aggressive S-rank criminal, but he was no one but himself. He chuckled a little at Itachi's insistence-he respected the man, of course, but it _was_ a little funny to see someone younger than him take control of things-and grinned an affirmative rather easily at him.

"What are we waiting for, then?"

He didn't spare a glance back at Mai, as she rather deliriously tried to scramble to her feet, feeling as if she were moving in slow motion, and left. Wherever he was going, no one knew, but Mai thought with a sinking spirit that his departure boded ill for the village. Itachi glanced unaffectedly at the destruction he and his teammate had caused.

"Hn."

But Mai couldn't even be bothered to keep an eye on him. Her mind was consumed with only one thought-_Sasuke_. Subconsciously, she had reached the point where she decided that Itachi simply _wasn't worth her time_. He wasn't worth her energy, he wasn't worth her hate, and he certainly wasn't worth her pain.

Of course, it was an entirely different matter altogether, whether she would remember that little, seemingly insignificant thought later on, if she lived. When she saw Sasuke, all thoughts were wiped from her mind and she was nearly sick.

"Sasuke. _Sasuke_."

He was lying flat on his back, his arms both at awkward angles, his torso convulsing. His eyes were closed, not as if from pain, but as if in sleep, and his expression was one of acute terror. It was _disturbing_ to see him thrash around, not screaming, not shouting, not saying anything at all. Mai knew exactly what it was. She herself had experienced it. It was a parting gift, after all.

In the state she was in-it was only through her insistence on staying awake that she managed to simply not faint of exhaustion-she didn't really think about what she was doing other than willing her body to move, inch by inch and step by step towards the man she now hated more than any in the world. It was nothing short of a miracle that she was still standing, although it was more as if something was _making_ her move. There was another flicker of that self-same something in her eyes again.

"Itachi."

The man in question stopped unbearably slowly before tilting his head so that he could see her advancing in his peripheral vision. Very quietly, not giving any indication that he knew precisely what was happening to her, he turned his head completely away from her and simply _stood_ for a minute, eyes closed, face tilted just to the sky, entirely still.

Sasuke had stopped thrashing.

"Itachi…"

To say that hearing Mai say his name like that was a shock was an understatement at best, but he didn't visibly react. Kisame had taken too much chakra, and without looking Itachi knew that whatever wound she had received to the back of the head from the hilt of Samehada earlier was dangerous. She wasn't in her right mind already, and the exhaustion didn't help.

Without warning, she lunged at him with a hairpin, staggering, really, and reeling from the sheer intensity of how disoriented she was. Her eyes flickered and before she had a chance to say anything, Itachi knocked the hairpin out of her hand, looking expressionlessly away.

"You don't have enough chakra, foolish woman. You'll die."

She blinked sluggishly at him, as if asking him _why_, and then everything was gone.

Open Your Eyes/End.


	6. Scroll 6

**Scroll 6: Blissful Oblivion**

Neither Mai nor Sasuke woke from their Mangekyou Sharingan induced comas until Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, was brought back to the village by Naruto, Sasuke's teammate that Mai hadn't yet had the fortune to meet. Seeing as Tsunade had been brought back by Naruto, it was only natural that Sasuke and Kakashi be attended to first.

Mai was attended to directly after, though, as Sasuke had, essentially, pitched a fit with such a fury that all civilian nurses designated to his care were pulled from his room for their safety. Shinobi medics were called in to calm the boy down and sedate him, if necessary.

"Where's Mai?"

A male medic gently pushed him down, glancing rather worriedly at a coworker.

"Uchiha-san, please calm down. Everything is alright. There is nothing-"

"_Where's Mai?_"

This time, Sasuke did not miss the significant glances the two men exchanged and in his wild rage, batted one of them away and kicked and struggled and made serious attempts to break his remaining captor's arm until he was freed.

"Get away from me!"

The images of his family, broken and bleeding at his feet, his entire clan, slaughtered like animals by his once beloved brother were still reeling in his mind. It was the same. It might as well have been _that night_ still. Maybe everything had been a lie, maybe he wasn't older, maybe he had just been trapped in the illusion for so long that it _felt_ like he was years older.

All he could think of was Mai, frighteningly still on the ground, empty eyes gazing off into some unknown place, her throat bound in a ribbon of blood.

Itachi's Nightmare Realm. It was the same as the first time.

"Mai!"

He struggled more fiercely against what he now realized were straps cuffing him to the hospital bed and a blur shot across the room, oddly familiar in it's chakra signature, and there was a prick at his neck and everything, for him, grew dim.

Mai was dreaming. She had been stuck in an endlessly repeating loop of memory, and it was…_beautiful_. And she had been trapped in it for so long that she forgot that it wasn't real.

"Mai!"

"_Mai!"_

_She turned around abruptly, kunai in hand, poising it at her "attacker's" throat. Itachi grinned at her, __**grinned!**__ and gently took her by the wrist and eased her out of her defensive stance. A little sheepishly, she stowed her weapon._

"_I'm sorry. You startled me."_

_He shook his head rather softly._

"_No, it was my fault. I know you like to come to this training ground because it's secluded. You weren't expecting anyone to come up so near you. I apologize."_

_She flushed at the sincerity in his expression-honestly, the man was too much-and brushed a few loosened strands of hair that had escaped her rather hastily done bun. _

"_It's fine." She said, looking at the ground._

_Itachi looked about the grounds, placing his hands in his pockets. _

"_Walk with me?"_

_There wasn't any way in the world that Mai, even as a __**joke**__, might have said no._

"_Of course."_

_They walked together, in the woods they had played in as children, trained in as adolescents, and frequented now as fully-fledged ninja. Beams of moonlight played through the leafy boughs of the trees, catching on the ornaments in Mai's hair, illuminating Itachi's kind, if solemn face. They walked in the silence they were used to. A companionable one, if one born out of the inability to speak of what they each were thinking. _

_Then-_

"_As of tomorrow, we will be engaged."_

_It startled her so that it was all that she could do in her power to not actually jump. _

"_Ah-yes."_

_The tension was rife in the air between them, and somewhere a bird crooned. The light was dimming in the onslaught of night, and something about the way the shadows of the trees grew longer and longer before her eyes made Mai's throat tighten, not in any sort of fear, but in some nameless anticipation. _

_She walked with him in silence, stopped when he stopped, and looked ahead as he did, toward the path that lead back to the village. Before she had a moment to even sigh rather shakily in response to her rather foolish confirmation of his statement, she felt something settle gently on her shoulders, a loving embrace of cloud-light silk. _

"_I don't know that I could forgive myself for letting you catch a cold on any night, let alone this one."_

_He said it so gently and sincerely that Mai actually turned blushed. _

"_I wouldn't hold you responsible."_

_He glanced away from her at the sky, quietly walking beside her. _

"_No, you wouldn't."_

_He turned back to her and smiled._

"_But what kind of man would I be then?"_

_She smiled a little warmly, her cheeks pink, but she swallowed when he turned his attention back to the moon that so sweetly bathed them in pooling silver light. His face became grave then, drawn as the thought that had been troubling him assaulted him with guilt once more. And he glanced over at her, and was struck by her beauty in the light. _

_Silver played about her hair of which several strands had come loose, and her ornaments of precious stones glimmered like stars in the darkness. As if under some spell cast upon him by her pale, illuminated face, he reached for her and pulled out her pearl, gold, and ruby hairpins, sighing in some agonized contentment as her hair, dark as the shadows around them, tumbled over her shoulders like liquid night._

"_Itachi-"_

_They were stopped not in a clearing, but in the shadow of a huge tree, unable to move because it was very clear to them both that a line previously untested had been crossed. _

_And Itachi allowed himself a second, little sin and pulled her into his arms._

"_Tomorrow, we are to be engaged. And I must be forthright with you now, Mai, and tell you that I can't bear the thought of it."_

_What kind of man would he be then, after all, if he ensnared the woman he loved in the politics of the clan for his own selfish fulfillment. _

"_If you feel nothing for me other than what you would feel for a comrade or brother, tell me now, before I let this weakness overcome me again so that I can end this."_

_Mai had grown up with the knowledge that Uchiha Itachi, the son of Uchiha Fugaku and his wife, Mikoto, would one day be her husband. She had been raised to be his bride, and in all the time she had spent with him, she had fallen in love with him. And she had thanked the gods for pairing her with him and thus making her duty to the clan earnestly fulfilled. _

_And now he didn't want her. Or rather, he loved her so much he couldn't bear to want her, not at the cost of her freedom._

"_Itachi…"_

_She buried her face in his chest, not wanting him to see the tears that were threatening to spill onto her cheeks in pure, unadulterated felicity. _

"_I love you."_

Mai was lost. Lost in a kaleidoscope of memory, ever-changing, ever-lovely. Like the soft colors of spring falling about her enraptured conscious in a whirlwind of intoxicating scent.

"_Can I help you with that?"_

_Mai jumped at hearing the voice. _

"_Itachi! You-how did you get in here?"_

_He chuckled under his breath at the rather modest outrage in her voice and devoted himself to helping her with her outer kimono, pulling it shut gently against the soft whiteness of her inner robe with a dexterity born of practice._

"_I'm an ANBU Captain, Mai. It's not exactly beyond me."_

_She sighed huffily but decided there wasn't much use to booting him out now. _

"_It's bad luck for the groom to see his bride before the ceremony. It supposedly foreshadows inevitable tragedy. And you waltz right in here like it's nothing!"_

_He smiled into her slender neck. _

"_Luck? Luck is unnecessary. I have you, what else could possibly matter?"_

_She swatted him away with a sigh._

"_You are incorrigible. It should be a sin, putting on that sort of suavity and charming your way out of everything. Is this what I have the rest of a lifetime to look forward to?"_

_He deftly put something in her hair, ignoring her attempts at chastisement, knowing she was secretly smiling and no more firm in her disapproval than a puddle of water he might use for his jutsu. The black opal hairpin was a myriad of colors in her hair, like some sort of damascene fire burning fiercely in the light._

"_What's that?"_

_He stopped her hand, a barely noticeable look of amusement on his face._

"_You're not allowed to see it until tonight. It's my gift to you."_

_She looked at him then, her eyes meeting his in the mirror, and sighed, not in a melancholy way, but in an almost frightened way, so overcome was she with her joy._

"_I love you, Itachi."_

_He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, causing her to shiver as he kept hold of it and knelt at her side. He laid his head in her lap._

"_We'll be married today."_

_She nodded, closing her eyes and simply __**feeling**__ him there. _

"_We will."_

_And as she sat, he looked up at her and wondered if she would ever know how much, precisely, he loved her, how fiercely that love struck him at times, and how devoted he was, always, to her being. How much it meant to him, to have spent time in her presence, to have kissed her, held her, loved her, and now, at last, to tie her life to his. _

_It was a quiet, ardent love that they shared, and perhaps they would have been surprised to find that in that moment, they were having the very selfsame thought. _

_And they sat there, hardly breathing, basking in each other's nearness until the time came for Itachi to disappear, and Mai turned bravely to meet the women of the Uchiha clan as they came to attend her and bring her, at last, to her wedding day._

She didn't want it to ever stop. Because if it did, now, she would surely die.

_Itachi walked with an aura of icy cool about him, of indifference as he stood near the proctors, waiting to be assigned a new squad member from the most recently passed group of ninja. Inside, though, he was on __**fire**__. He had once been tested, just as these rookies had, and he knew what the examination was like. _

_Never before had he had any sort of investment in these exams. It was all the same to him, pass or fail, live or die. But this time…__**this**__ time was different. _

"_The lieutenant captain of squad six has been promoted to captaincy."_

_Itachi watched Takewa Ryuu walk over to the space in the line of captains reserved for squad fourteen with little a care. He had lost his lieutenant. A replacement was sure to come quickly. With little other thought, he turned back to the group. _

_The Head Proctor spoke for a bit yet, assigned a few rookies to squads one through five respectively, and then it was time for squad six. Itachi was disquieted, now, having yet to see any sign of Mai in the groups, and against his will he began to grow concerned. _

"_We promote Yushiki Hotaru to the rank of ANBU and assign him to squad six to fill in the vacancy of left-wing."_

_A fair-haired man with a mask shaped rather like a fish's stalked up to the proctor and allowed his bare arm to be tattooed with the swirling blank ink of the ANBU sign. Itachi looked away, feigning disinterest. Mai. Where was she?_

_Yushiki Hotaru stood when it was done and went to stand with his new squad's right wing. A woman came up to the proctor and bowed and Itachi's breath caught in his throat. _

"_We promote Uchiha Mai to the rank of ANBU and assign her to squad six to fill in the vacancy of lieutenant captain."_

_She stood, unflinching, as she received her tattoo and walked silently to her place at his side. He closed his eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to take her hand in his own. She had made it. She was safe. And she had done her clan proud. _

_They stood without speaking, backs straight in resolute discipline as more names were called. Itachi didn't dare look at her. She made no move to look at him. And when the ceremony was over the crowd scattered, and Itachi and Mai were left, at last, alone. _

_They stood for a moment more, rigid, until Mai knelt in the shinobi way before him._

"_Itachi," she said, looking at the ground. "I've followed you all my life, and now I have reached you. Please allow me, now, to fight by your side, as your lieutenant. Please accept me…Captain."_

_He reached gently for her and pulled her to her feet, the relief he felt overwhelming his bones as he stood there, burying the urge to pull her into his arms back into his innermost consciousness, where it had to belong. _

"_Always."_

How she had felt then, when he raised her up, when he accepted her as a part of his squad. It had been her greatest dream, to stand beside him, and he had, at last, let her.

"_Very good Sasuke. Hell, you'll probably be my squad captain in a few years."_

_The little boy sauntered off to ask his mother excitedly if she had heard that, if she had heard what Mai said about being her future squad captain, and Itachi quietly came up behind Mai and took a hold of her hand, leading her to his room before the boy returned. _

"_You didn't have to do that."_

_Mai shrugged with a fond smile on her face, trying to ignore the shivery feeling that was racing up her spine at the close contact between her and the man she loved, the warmth of his hand around her own. _

"_I didn't mind. And he was so excited…"_

_Itachi shook his head, dropping her hand and walking to the door to close it, his eyes shutting for just a moment as he regretted the loss of contact. Mai averted her eyes from his form to the window, her thoughts in a similar place as she closed her hand as if too keep the feel of his there now that it was gone. _

_Weary from the mission, Mai flopped back onto his bed so that she lay across it. Itachi smiled rather subtly at this and sat beside her, leaning against the wall in his own tiredness._

"_The Hokage will likely pull you in for questioning as well, you know."_

_Mai turned over on to her side so that she could observe him pensively. He looked worn. It had been a hard mission, it was true, but he never let any form of tiredness show on his face. Mai's face flushed suddenly, as if she was seeing him for the first time._

_He was letting his guard down. In front of her. _

"_Well, yes. I'm your lieutenant. It's only natural for me to share responsibility with-"_

"_Mai…" He started, closing his eyes and tilting his head upwards a little, resting it against the wall, "you didn't have to do that."_

_It was what he had said to her earlier, and that perplexed her. _

"_Do what, Itachi?"_

_He was quiet for a moment and then sighed, and in that sigh seemed to release some sort of inhibition and looked at her in his grave, earnest way. _

"_You didn't have to take them on alone. We could have done it together, and we could have gone after the target together. We could have switched places. The target's guards were hardly troublesome. You could have left the spies to me."_

_Mai blinked in sudden understanding and then swallowed. She wasn't hurt, no, but she was something close to it, and she understood that he was just worried for his friend. But maybe she was hurt. Maybe she was._

"_I…I know that I haven't gotten my sharingan yet, Itachi, and I know that I'm not as powerful a ninja as you, but I'm capable and I earned my rank. I trained for situations such as that, and I handled it. It was my duty."_

_She couldn't see why it was wrong, he thought. Of course she couldn't. He knew her. With a long-suffering, quiet sigh, Itachi watched her._

"_I understand that you are capable. I simply meant that the risk you took was unnecessary, though I appreciate it, and that you mustn't take so much as your own burden. You are my lieutenant. It is my duty to look after you."_

_She wasn't understanding what he was saying. _

"_It's my duty to facilitate the execution of the mission and assist you in any way I can. You do too much, Itachi, and I want to help you. Is that wrong?"_

_No, he could have said, no it wasn't, but he didn't. He simply murmured an assent to her point and watched her lay her head back down with sad eyes. She didn't understand. She was capable. He, of all people, who championed her prowess to anyone who would dare look down on her, knew that. But could he help it if he loved her, if he couldn't bear the thought of her being hurt on his account?_

"_Itachi?"_

_Stiffening, he drew back the hand that was stroking the remnants of her shorn hair. _

"…_Yes?"_

_With a secretive smile, Mai shook her head and snuggled into the spicy, woodsy scent of his pillow and closed her eyes. Maybe, just maybe, she understood him after all. _

Blissful Oblivion/End.


End file.
